Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers was once the gold-standard of Silicon Valley venture capital firms. But its star has faded in recent years, and last year it was cleaved in half when one of its superstar partners left to start her own firm.

Marinova recounts how a combination of unclear leadership and poor investment decisions led the once-prominent Silicon Valley institution to "B-list" status among entrepreneurs. Kleiner Perkins famously missed out on investments in internet services Facebook, Slack, and Robinhood, among others, in favor of going all in on clean energy at the direction of firm leader John Doerr.

When many of these clean energy bets proved unprofitable or went wholly bankrupt Kleiner Perkins brought on acclaimed analyst Mary Meeker to lead a growth fund and get in on the investments they had missed, Fortune reports. Meeker took on late-stage investments in Slack, Robinhood, and other high-growth startups the firm had passed on earlier, according to the report.